Posted on 04/02/2014 10:17:02 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
HIGH POINT, NC - Stanley Furniture Company, Inc. today reported it will cease domestic furniture production in the factory that supports its Young America brand.
“We have a healthy Stanley business that is making money. It is supported by a wonderful heritage, strong product in the field and future pipeline, and we are looking forward to the prospects of focusing our team solely on the growth and profitability of this brand in the short-term”
“We have decided to cease manufacturing operations in Robbinsville,” said Glenn Prillaman, President and Chief Executive Officer. “After a thorough review of both our own operations and the current marketplace for nursery and youth furniture, management and the Board concluded that the Young America business could not achieve an acceptable level of revenue within an adequate time frame to assure sustainable profitability and has decided that it is time for our company to focus its efforts on our profitable and growing Stanley brand,” continued Prillaman.
The company will honor all orders for Young America products placed on our before April 28, 2014. “What is important now is that we exit our domestic operation in a way that minimizes the impact on our retail customers, and that we do all we can to help our approximately 400 associates in Robbinsville with this difficult change for them and their families. Additionally, we have retained services to assist in maximizing value from assets related to the Young America brand,” commented Prillaman.
Orders for the company’s Stanley brand were up double digits in the first quarter, even with the weather-related challenges that plagued retailers across the country. “We have a healthy Stanley business that is making money. It is supported by a wonderful heritage, strong product in the field and future pipeline, and we are looking forward to the prospects of focusing our team solely on the growth and profitability of this brand in the short-term,” concluded Prillaman.
The company ended its first quarter with approximately $16.7 million in cash and remains debt free. The results of the first quarter and impact of the restructuring will be discussed in detail on the upcoming conference call.
First Quarter 2014 Results
To allow for sufficient evaluation of restructuring charges, the company will delay its release of first quarter results until after market closes on April 30, 2014 and will hold its conference call on the following morning at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time. The Annual Shareholder’s Meeting remains scheduled for April 17, 2014.
About the Company
Established in 1924, Stanley Furniture Company, Inc. is a leading designer and manufacturer of wood furniture targeted at the premium segment of the residential market. Its Stanley Furniture brand is supported by an overseas sourcing model and is distributed throughout the upscale market competing through superior product design, finish, styling and piece assortment. The company’s common stock is traded on the NASDAQ stock market under the symbol STLY.
I think it’s all of these plus the lure of slave labor. Hey, why not? If there is no God and it’s legal, right?
Walmart helped put a lot of small stores, and small towns, out of business because the people in those small towns wanted to pay less for stuff. It’s human nature.
Seems like this company was making a profit, but it wasn’t good enough for young sell out Glenn Prillaman. I don’t blame unions or government reg’s for any of this. Like you said, how can you compete with slave labor, seems to me tariffs should rule the day once again. These globalist sure have an agenda and it’s not in the majority of Americans best interest. Of course any idiot voted democrat would buy a foreign product if there was an american product laying right next to it, so much for supporting your union brothers and accelerating the decline of manufacturing. I actually support unions, those men and their relatives knew which side of their bread was buttered on and bought American. The idiots now a days are clueless. I use to buy this one brand of tennis shoes because it was the last American brand there was, then they off-shored, I’m fed up with it. Bring back tariffs.
My husband and I were watching a documentary on Detroit, and all I could think was how much both repulicans and democrats have screwed our country. The democrats with their endless handouts and the republicans just supporting companies moving manufacturing out of our country.
What party stands for the hard working middle class. Neither party!
Free Republic is a Conservative site, and that means pro-God, pro-liberty and pro-freedom. Simply put unions are communistic. Even a cursory examination of unionism and its history reveals that it was tool of international marxism. The movers and shakers of the union movement were servants of the Comintern, comprising a rogue's gallery of some truly evil, despicable men from Bill Haywood, Eugene V. Debs, Samuel Gompers, Walter Reuther, I.W. Able and numerous others.
Supporting unionism inevitably goes hand-in-hand with all forms of liberalism: atheism, abortionism and homosexualism. Because I truly love America, I hate unions.
Supporting unionism inevitably goes hand-in-hand with all forms of liberalism: atheism, abortionism and homosexualism. Because I truly love America, I hate unions.
Well said, and don't forget corrupt ties with organized crime in modern times. History is our friend....
That is what we call CRAPITALISM
You can bet any of the Kentucky or Tennessee hillbilly union members from days past would spit in your eye if you implied they were communist. I’ve worked in industry my whole life and worked with a bunch of skilled union workers on numerous occasions. I’ve seen alot of stupid union moves over the years and I tend to agree with you generally. Let’s just say I support Americans over foreigner’s any day of the week and the way the Gop’e is rolling right now that should be evidently clear. It’s a mixed bag for me, support unions or support illegals. I have never been a union member either.
I only mention this because an industry that moves from the U.S. to Asia today may be doing it for perfectly good reasons that aren't obvious. Two possibilities in the furniture business: (1) maybe they're getting the wood for their furniture from Asia, and/or (2) maybe they're selling a lot of furniture to Asian customers.
Not really. I don't see where this company is unionized. Also, they are debt free and making a serious profit.
My sister-in-law is an interior decorator. She said most furniture production shifted to China 10 years ago.
“We have a healthy Stanley business that is making money. It is supported by a wonderful heritage, strong product in the field and future pipeline, and we are looking forward to the prospects of focusing our team solely on the growth and profitability of this brand in the short-term”...
Sounds like liberal speak for “We’re moving to China”
Ah yes, the mandatory excuse for why the economy sucks. It’s because it snowed this winter.
“”””””Orders for the company’s Stanley brand were up double digits in the first quarter, even with the weather-related challenges that plagued retailers across the country. “”””””
Yes, when everyone in the U.S. is on welfare the the country economically collapses.
“Unions and the minimum wage are to blame.”
Very few if any furniture factories in the south were represented by unions. The wages in southern furniture plants are about $12.00 per hour which equates to $24,000 per year (50 weeks, 40 hours per week, $12 per hour). It would be very difficult for a head of household to raise a family on $24,000 per year today. Lower the pay to the federal minimum wage and the same worker will earn $14,500 per year.
In 2013 the average minimum wage in China was $264 per month which represents an annual income of $3,168. If the US minimum wage is to blame, and Chinese labor is the competition, what would you suggest is the appropriate pay for US labor in US factories? Should a non-union US furniture factory be paying its workers $3,168 per year?
The reality is an American worker cannot feed, clothe, and provide shelter for himself or herself, much less a family, on a wage competitive with Chinese workers. Chinese wages are so low it is more economical to ship lumber from US forests to China, convert the raw lumber to finished furniture, and ship it back across the ocean than it is to employ US workers doing the same job at minimum wage or even below minimum wage.
Unions and the minimum wage are not the problem. The problem is the Congress of the United States approved free trade agreements eliminating tariffs and quotas opening and up the US market to unrestricted sales of products by foreign factories. Once these policies were implemented the economics of entire industries changed. Corporations and Wall Street investment companies decided to allocate manufacturing capital outside the US, resulting in the deindustrialization of the United States over a period of 25 years.
If the same trade policies had been in effect in the second half of the 19th century, the United States would never have become a great industrial power. During the period after the Civil War Congress chose to sustain high tariff for the express purpose of encouraging capital investment in US manufacturing and transportation network required to move raw materials to the factories. Congress also encouraged massive immigration to supply low cost labor to man the factories.
Today we have chosen to eliminate tariffs. If the unions were banned and the minimum wage was eliminated today, the fundamental economics would not change. A US factory offering Chinese wages to workers would have no employees because a worker cannot afford to live in the USA on a Chinese wage.
The answer is simple but politically unacceptable to Wall Street and multinational corporations. Reinstate the tariff rates in effect before George H.W. Bush took office and it will become economically viable to manufacture consumer products in the United States for domestic consumption. Continue the current policies and watch more US factories and manufacturing jobs go offshore.
Twenty five years of the free trade experiment has gutted the US manufacturing economy and is destroying the middle class. Union greed and work rules certainly played a role in encouraging northern factories to move to the southern US in the 1970’s and 1980’s. However, it was elimination of trade barriers that caused factories to exit the US in the last 25 years, not the minimum wage or union activity.
If we continue the same trade policies, the US will look like a poor Central American country in another 25 years. Low wages, high unemployment, high crime, rampant corruption, a dictatorial government, and a two class society with the very poor and a very small ultra rich ruling class.
Both political parties are funded by Wall Street and large corporations. Both political parties supported globalization and free trade. As a result we never had a national debate about free trade, it quietly happened. The results have been disastrous for US workers and the total economy. However, no one in the political class today is even talking about changing policy. Running for office is expensive and any politician proposing a radical change in trade policy would be unable to find funding for an election campaign.
Is N. Carolina a Union state, or are they Right to Work?
The cost of Obamacare destroys yet another American industry.
-——Unions and the minimum wage are not the problem. ——
From a stockholders/owners view, there is no problem. To produce a profit, the cost of the commodity called labor can be reduced if noncompetitive plants are closed. What is frequently misunderstood is that the labor competition exists on a global basis.
The wreckage of WW II dampened the ability of many countries. For perhaps the last two decades there has been all sorts of growth that permitted them to act in ways previously not possible. The temporary advantage We had begin to dissipate.
The competition is now fully in force. The off the beaten path unbeaten paths to the mountains and Robbinsville are feeling the effect. They are no longer competitive.
The present is not a problem, it is a challenging opportunity.
Right to work
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